Science

These cute new additions to our plush collection are thymine (red), adenine (green), cytosine (green), and guanine (black) are the four nucleotide bases that make up our DNA. Not only are these Biochemies Plush adorably cute, they have magnets to form hydrogen bonds with each other. Thymine matches up to adenine and cytosine interacts with guanine.$29.50

Candy or plush bears are such predictable Valentine’s Day gift. Imagine the look on your sweetheart’s when they open the box to find–surprise!–you’ve given them gonorrhea. These little guys are giant versions of venereal diseases, and we’ve also got chlamydia, herpes, and syphilis, too.

If your S.O. doesn’t have much of a sense of humor, we’ve also got cute little sperm and egg.

Benoit Mandelbrot, the creator of fractal geometry died at the age of 85 this week. Fractals are a visual representation of an equation that is self-similar and based on recursion, and just so happen to mimic an incredible array of natural processes and formations, from mountain ranges to coral reefs, and interestingly, as the above video explains, explains not only the way branches of a tree are differentiated but how trees in a forest differentiate themselves. Pretty hot.

Mandelbrot Set featuring the song “Mandelbrot Set” by Jonathan Coulton

Here is a zoomed Mandelbrot fractal set to a song aptly entitled “Mandelbrot Set.”

Mr. Mandelbrot also did a lovely TED talk, which you can watch above.

For the geek boutique I run, Fractalspin (namesake obvious), I designed a paper toy called “Mandelbot” named after the man himself. You can download the PDF, print it out and assemble it for free.